Five Years After Meteor: A Cold Splash of Reality
by The Avid Roleplayer
Summary: Five years later, Cloud hasn't fully recovered from... the whole Sephiroth incident... but it definitely doesn't help when the one-winged angel himself shows up at his door. And it helps even less when the portal they step into takes them somewhere... entirely unexpected. Where they both must face the horrors of the real world. Such as fangirls. (Not a pairing or OC-centric fic.)
1. The Return of Sephiroth

Cloud Strife was sitting in the kitchen of his small cabin on Gaia's Cliff, and thinking about his past. He had done an awful lot of that recently, mainly because he had nothing better to do. He thought about Aerith, about her gentle, kind voice, her beautiful brown hair, and her innocent turquoise eyes. He remembered how he had felt meeting Zack, how he was always so nice to him, how he had given him his sword before he passed away. He thought about all the fun times he'd had with his friends, the triumphant feeling he had felt when they finally defeated Sephiroth...

Sephiroth. The mere thought of him sent chills down Cloud's spine. He had killed Aerith. He had killed Zack. He had made him doubt himself more in a few months than he had in the rest of his entire life. But now he, too, was dead, and Cloud thought he deserved so much worse than that for his actions.

The blond-haired man was interrupted from his thoughts when he heard a knock at the door. "Cloud? You there? It's me." The voice belonged to Tifa Lockhart, the one person from back then that he was still in touch with after five years. "Open up!"

"Sorry," he mumbled as he trudged over to answer the door. "So, any news?"

Tifa had a flustered look in her brown eyes. "Unfortunately, yes. Somebody barfed all over the floor of the bar and now I've gotta clean it up. Not only that, there's piss all over the floor in the men's bathroom." She let out an exasperated sigh.

Cloud suppressed a giggle, knowing that she'd probably kill him if he laughed. "Mph. A-anything else?"

"I got a call from Barret," she said, her voice suddenly chipper. "He says he's doing fine and so is his daughter. Marlene's nine years old now, you know."

"Time goes by fast, I guess," Cloud said with a shrug.

"Oh, and he said he wanted to talk to you about something."

"Okay. What time should I be expecting a call?"

"I'd say right about-"

Just then, Cloud's phone rang.

"... now."

Cloud picked up the phone. "This is Cloud."

He was nearly thrown back by the sound of Barret's loud voice. "Hey, Cloud! It's me, Barret! How ya' doing? I don't know if Tifa's told you, but I'm doing just fine. Marlene's doin' good, too. She's nine now, ya' know!"

"Y-yeah, Barret, I heard." Cloud winced a little. "Anyway, what did you want to talk about?"  
"Well," he said, "I was taking my daily jog today when I bumped into this guy. He was wearing a hood, but he had this big-ass sword with him and I could see a bit of silver hair. It was probably a coincidence, but you know... ya' can never be too careful with... him."

Cloud was in disbelief. Just a few minutes ago, he was thinking about the horrible things that had happened because of the one-winged angel, and now Barret had reported a possible sighting... could it have been a coincidence?

"Barret," he said, his voice wavering, "which way was he heading?"

"Oh, I think he was going towards that big mountain. You know, where your cabin... is and all... oh, no." Barret's voice grew softer as he realized the meaning of what he had just said. "Run, Cloud. Run as fast as you can."

Just then, the doorbell rang. "Who is it?" shouted Tifa. "We're kind of busy right now, so if you're selling something, go find another house!"

The person on the other side of the door replied, "I'm not selling something. I just came to visit. Is Cloud Strife here?"

"Yeah. Hold on." Tifa walked over to the door. She opened it a crack so that she could see who was there, then closed it with so much force that the walls shook.

"What's wrong, Tifa?" Cloud asked, looking concerned.

"Cloud," she hissed through her teeth, "hide. Right... now..."

She didn't need to ask him twice. He ran into the closet and shut the door behind him.

From his hiding spot, he could hear someone outside draw a sword from its scabbard. A second later, the wooden door was chopped clean off its hinges. Tifa gasped.

Cloud heard another voice in the room. It definitely belonged to a man, but it wasn't a friendly, loud voice like Barret's. It sounded more dark, more sinister. Kind of sounded like...

"Sephiroth!" Tifa growled. "What do you want?"

"Oh, I only came here to visit you." The silver-haired man slowly walked towards the closet and knocked lightly on the door. "It's okay, puppet," he said in a singsong voice, "I won't hurt you... yet..."

"Go away, Sephiroth."

"I'm not lying," he cooed. "In fact, I'll prove it to you." In one swift motion, he opened the door, scooped Cloud up in one arm, and casually strolled outside. Tifa gasped. Again.

Sephiroth snapped his fingers and a black portal opened in front of him. He carefully dropped Cloud in first, then winked at Tifa and stepped inside.

-o-

Inside the portal...

"Where are you taking me, anyway?" Cloud asked, shaking out his blond hair.

Sephiroth scratched his head. "Well, this portal is supposed to be taking us to the ruins of Nibelheim, but I think it's going somewhere else."

"What makes you think that?"

"Well, portals are teleportation devices, right? So we should be there already. I've never been inside a portal this long."

"Good point. Either it's malfunctioning or the place it's taking us is really far away."

Suddenly, the two of them fell out of the portal. Cloud groaned as he slowly opened his eyes to look at his surroundings, and was unpleasantly surprised to find out that he had landed on top of Sephiroth. He was even more unpleasantly surprised to find himself surrounded by complete strangers.

Sephiroth stood up so quickly that Cloud was sent flying. "All right, what's going on here? Who are you people? Why are you all staring at me? Haven't you ever seen a guy with silver hair before? And a nine-foot-long katana? And a leather coat?" He paused for a few seconds, realizing how different he looked from everyone there. "Okay, I can see why you're all staring at me."

"Calm down, Sephiroth," said Cloud, slowly getting to his feet. "These guys don't even have weapons."

"But they could have hidden weapons! And look at those cases on the shelves," he protested, pointing at the various cartridges on display. They said things like 'Super Mario Bros' and 'Legend of Zelda'. "They could be explosive!"

Cloud opened up one of the smaller cases. He held up a small square-shaped card with the words 'Animal Crossing' on it. "Er, Sephiroth..."

"DON'T TOUCH IT! YOU'LL DOOM US ALL!"

All of a sudden, they heard an ear-piercing squeal coming from the back of the room. A teenaged girl with red hair and lots of freckles came rushing at them.

"Er, h-hello," Cloud said, backing away carefully. "Can I help y- AAAAAH! GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF!" he screamed as she tackled him to the ground.

"Hi!" she giggled. "My name's Lizzy. Lizzy Scarlet. Are you Cloud Strife?" Cloud nodded. "And is that Sephiroth?" Cloud nodded again. Instantly, about five people took out their phones and started taking pictures.

The man behind the counter gasped. "You two are real!? No way!"

"Heard the legends?" Sephiroth said with a smug grin.

"Er, no," he said in a puzzled tone. "I've just played Final Fantasy 7."

"What's that?"

"It's a video game. The video game you and Cloud are from." He held up another case. This one had 'Final Fantasy VII' written on it in big letters.

"What's a video game?"

"It's a- oh, never mind, just look it up."

[AN: And here's my first FF fanfic! For all you Portal fans, could you check out my story The Aperture Incident? And review it? Also, for those of you with Wattpad accounts, this is based off another story with the same name that I wrote a year ago. -TAR]


	2. You Guys Are Like Celebrities Here

Cloud and Sephiroth were lucky enough to have escaped the shop with only minor injury. They had both had to defend themselves against waves and waves of fangirls, but by some miracle, they had survived. Now they were hiding from their lovingly vicious attackers in the shed of an apartment complex, wondering where in the universe this place was. As high-strung as they were at the time, they almost jumped straight up in the air when they heard the door open. Expecting more fangirls to come rushing at him, Sephiroth drew his sword. The landlord almost wet himself.

"HOLY SHIT!" he screamed, jumping back about five feet. "Who are you!? DON'T HURT ME! PLEASE!"

Sephiroth was a bit startled, himself. "Sorry, I thought you were one of those crazy female tackle-monsters." Out of the corner of his eye, he could see somebody walking out of their apartment. She had red hair and blue eyes, kind of like Genesis, and her face was covered in freckles.

"Hey, Cloud," he snickered, "it's that girl from the store. You know, the one that almost crushed your ribs?" Cloud didn't say anything. Instead, he dove behind some boxes and hoped she didn't come his way.

She did. "Hi, Cloud! Hi, Sephy! What's happening?" Her voice was cheerful, but Cloud remained on his guard. He knew what her type was capable of. "You all okay in there?"

"Yes, I'm perfectly fine, thanks," Cloud shouted from his hiding spot.

"No, he's not!" said Sephiroth, taking advantage of his enemy's situation. "He wants you to say hi to him!"

Lizzy flicked his cheek playfully. "Very funny, Sephy."

"Actually, my name's Sephiroth. Seph-i-roth. Not Sephy." The silver-haired man seemed slightly annoyed.

"Whatever you say, Sephy. Anyway, I think you two need somewhere to stay, and I don't have a roommate, so if you want to spend the night in my apartment-"

"You won't molest Cloud here in his sleep, will you?"

"No!" She looked at Sephiroth as if he were crazy, which, technically, he was.

"Darn."

"As I was saying," Lizzy said, rolling her eyes at Sephiroth, "both of you will probably have the media all over you when you wake up in the morning if you sleep outside. You guys are like celebrities here, except nobody knows you're real, so people will be twice as shocked."

Cloud slowly crawled out from behind the boxes. "Wait... people don't know we're real? What do you mean? Of course we're real!"

"I know, but here you're considered fictional characters. And when people see fictional characters in this world, they get all crazy. Especially the fangirls."

"What's a fangirl?"

"You know, like those girls that kept trying to hug you and Sephy."

"Ohhh. Those. I thought they were demons." Cloud scratched his head. "Anyway, I think Sephiroth and I can handle ourselves just fine. I mean, what's the worst they can do?"

-o-

Cloud and Sephiroth woke up to the sound of clicking cameras and high-pitched squeals. They were surrounded by people holding phones, fangirls wearing FF7-related shirts, and camcorder-bearing gamer nerds.

"What. The. Fuck." Sephiroth sat bolt upright when he realized what was going on. "What is with you people!? You just make me want to..."

"Sephiroth," warned Cloud, who was wiping a fangirl's drool off his pants, "don't try to kill anyone."

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't," he growled, drawing his sword. Just then, the two of them heard a voice from the back of the crowd.

"Yoo-hoo! Cloudy! Sephy! You there?"

"Let me guess," Sephiroth groaned. "Lizzy?"

"You got it, Sephy!" Once again, she came barreling through the reporters at top speed. "I came to save your adorable little butts again."

"Um, no offense," he said, "but I don't know what a little girl like you can do against all these people. There's like, what, a hundred of them?"

"Trust me. I have an idea." She reached into Cloud's item pouch and pulled out a small orb. "I've played Final Fantasy 7 enough to tell materia apart from each other. This one should be all we need."

"I don't think you should be touching-" Sephiroth warned, but it was too late. She threw the materia at the ground. Upon impact, a cloud of thick black smoke rose up from the pavement and surrounded everyone, including them.

"Cloud! Grab Sephiroth's hand! Quick!" shouted Lizzy over the chaos.

"But why should I-"

"Just do it!" The red-haired fangirl latched on to Cloud's arm as she spoke. Once everyone was connected, she tapped Sephiroth on the shoulder vigorously. "Fly away! Now!" Not really having a better plan, Sephiroth did as he was told, carrying Cloud and Lizzy away from the expanding cloud of smoke.

"There's my apartment! Put us down there!" She pointed to a small, tan door in the middle of the complex.

"Okay." Temporarily forgetting that he was the only one who could fly, the one-winged angel hovered over the apartment... and dropped them.

Cloud flailed around helplessly in the air. "CRAAAAAAP!"

Lizzy flapped her arms like an excited chicken. "Whee!"

"Aw, man!" Sephiroth swooped down to catch them, only to run head-first into Cloud, sending them both flying into a nearby cactus. Lizzy landed on top of them.

"Yay! Let's do that again!" chirped Lizzy, sliding off Sephiroth's limp body. "That was fun, Sephy! ... Sephy?"

[Hey! Sorry it's been so long, guys. I hope you enjoyed this chapter! -TAR]


End file.
